


Notes on Waiting for Naomi

by tolstayas



Category: Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
Genre: Biblical References, F/F, there are several ways of interpreting what im talking about here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 19:41:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18212732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tolstayas/pseuds/tolstayas
Summary: It's about being alone and being in love in a hostile world, and how sometimes, they're almost the same thing.





	Notes on Waiting for Naomi

Once, Ruth told me about her name. 

 

For most of my life I hadn't imagined that names had stories behind them like that. Tommy, for instance - what could 'Tommy' mean except exactly that? By which I mean - him? 

 

But we discovered it, like so many other things. It became a sort of mania of ours. We were young, we had many passions, nothing could distract us for long... Names, as I remember, had been preceded by astrology, and followed by poetry, all of them fleeting fascinations. This time, Ruth was more enthusiastic than any of us, perhaps because she had discovered it. I don't remember how, I don’t think she ever told us. Probably it was something she'd read. Anyway, she did discover it, and came rushing up to Tommy and I to tell us - 

 

No, I'm remembering this wrong. That must have been some other time, some other thing. Because what I am sure of is the moment of realization, and I remember it because it was so conspiratorial, so intimate... Ruth and I were sitting on my bed, alone. 

 

I hadn't imagined that names had meanings.  _ Stories _ , no less. 

 

Ruth and I were sitting alone on my bed, and she told me that Ruth was the name of a woman who went into a foreign land and married a man but fell in love with his people, and when he died clung to his mother and refused to leave her, and stayed there with her all her life. 

 

"What does Kathy mean?" I think I asked, when she was done telling me. 

 

She frowned, tilted her head. She didn't know. She would have to go to the library. She would ask if there was a book about it. Would I come with her? 

 

I nodded. 

 

We didn't go that day, I don't think. We had to wait; perhaps we hadn't had the time, or it was closed. One day or another we did go, and we found a book, and she grabbed my hand and dragged me to a table. And I probably pretended to be exasperated, but in truth I always loved seeing her excited about something. She could be so brooding, so miserable sometimes. I liked it when she smiled. 

 

But - there was something before that. When we were sitting, alone. Talking about her name. She said, "I don't want to change my name anymore," because that had been another of her ideas. 

 

And then I said, "I think I'm a little bit like Ruth." 

 

And she didn't ask why, she just waited for me to tell her. 

 

If I had understood better back then, I might have been able to explain. I might have been able to say that I had always felt closest to foreign worlds, those distant and inaccessible to me. That I felt alienated from the only group I was allowed to belong to, which insisted on measuring me by criteria that never quite fit. That I felt a burning need to escape, though I barely knew from what. I felt trapped in a country that - I sensed this even then - wasn't truly mine. I felt eaten away at by the eyes of others, reduced to a fraction of myself.

 

But I didn't understand yet, and since one indescribable feeling could easily be substituted for another, I said, "I think Ruth was in love with Naomi." 

 

She was quiet for a minute, pensive, and then she said, "Like an umbrella thing?" 

 

I half-nodded. Now, of course, the topic of conversation had changed. We weren't talking about names any longer. 

 

"You think you're like Ruth because of that?" 

 

An even more timid nod. "I guess so." 

 

"What about Max?" she asked, because for a few weeks Max had been someone I talked about a lot. I don't remember at all what he looked like now at all. 

 

"I don't know," I whispered. 

 

"Okay," she said. And then we were quiet for a minute, and then she said, "I sort of think I might be like that too." 

 

I looked at her, not knowing what I should say. 

 

"How did you realize?" she asked. 

 

"Because of Miss Geraldine," I whispered, shy, hesitant. 

 

She giggled. "Me too." 

 

"Really?" 

 

"She's so pretty." 

 

My heart was still pounding, but we were smiling now. 

 

"Can I ask you something?" she whispered. 

 

"Yeah." 

 

"Have you ever kissed a girl?" 

 

I looked back at her wide-eyed. We were only twelve or thirteen, I think. "I've never kissed anyone." 

 

And of course I saw the question coming, and my heart was racing, and I didn't know what any of it meant. And of course the whole reason I had told her that at all was because it was her, not Miss Geraldine. It was her, and she was so pretty, and I didn't know how to tell her, and then there we were. 

 

"Do you want to try?" 

 

I saw it coming, but I didn't know what I was going to say until she asked.

 

"Yeah," I murmured, almost inaudibly. 

 

We both giggled, nervous. 

 

At first, she leaned forward and I jerked away, instinctively. She caught me on my forehead, and laughed, and reached out to hold my face in her hands, and then I closed my eyes and she kissed me. 

 

When I opened my eyes all I could see was her. 

 

And then it was over, and I could hardly breathe. She told me not to tell anyone, and I said, "okay," without asking why. It was all a sort of blur, a surreal sort of dreamscape.

 

We never kissed again after that. 

 

Sometimes I watched her, and I thought about that day, and wondered why. Why, if she wanted to kiss me, did she only do it once? Why, if she didn't, did she do it at all? Who was I to her, what were we? The thought of our secret made me giddy, but she never talked about it, and I never had the courage to bring it up. Sometimes I think I might have missed her more while she was nearby than when she was gone. At least now I only think about her sometimes. Back then, she was every second thought, especially when I should have been thinking of other things. 

 

In the end, as much as we are forcibly torn from ourselves, I know that a part of us stays the same forever. I know that somehow, I will always be the girl who stared wide-eyed at Ruth and her beauty every day of her life. And yes, we had that moment to ourselves, and it is worth everything. Sometimes I dream about it, still; but mostly, I just let it warm me, gently, like a ray of sunshine through the gap in the curtains. 

 

Kathy means purity. I learned this later on. I always half-wished I could have had a story like Ruth’s, rather than just that word: purity... I have never believed in it. I am a composite of things, a patch of dirt on which others have left the marks of their passage, perhaps buried a golden coin or two. I was not created pure, and I will not become pure, not even in the end. And yet I have loved. 

 

The story of Ruth, the first Ruth, still appears often in my thoughts. I remain, like her, a nationless woman, or at least one who is an outsider in her own nation. Ruth was the same, though she was never given the chance to realize it. It's what we all are. I haven't found a nation or a Naomi willing to have me yet, and my time is nearly up; but it's not just me, it's all of us. I know it may be far away, it may not yet even exist. But one day, I am sure, we will find our place. 

 

And when we do, love will be waiting there for us. 


End file.
